Harry Houdini trained his entire life to develop the muscular control that enabled him to perform his famous escapes. He could expand his wrists and ankles so that restraints and shackles that seemed to fit tightly when fastened would provide him enough wiggle room to effect his famous escapes once his muscles were relaxed. Such was his amazing breath control that he could remain underwater for minutes at a time, and he once was submerged in an airtight bronze coffin for an hour and thirty minutes. And of course, for most of his career his act featured a segment where he invited any member from the audience to punch him in the abdomen, which he had strengthened to such a degree that he was able to take the blow without any apparent discomfort.
Like all good stage tricks, there was an unseen component to this last stunt, although in this case it was a good bit simpler than a false-bottomed box or a hidden lockpick: Before he did the punch-in-the-stomach routine, he had to flex his abdominal muscles in preparation. So when McGill University boxing student J. Gordon Whitehead walked up to him after a show in Montreal and sucker-punched him repeatedly while he lay reclined on his couch, it hurt a good bit more than he was used to. Which might be why he ignored the pain from his appendicitis, resulting in the peritonitis that killed him two weeks later on Halloween of 1926.
Sucker punches are like that. Maybe you could shrug it off without batting an eye if you saw it coming. It's the element of surprise that gets you...
I always think of the Houdini story when I get one of these stomach aches.
Posted by flamingbanjo at July 19, 2005 03:06 PM